Radio Atlantic, IA – AM 1220

Iowa’s “Antique City” to be featured on PBS Program tonight (Monday)

January 7th, 2013 by Ric Hanson

The “Antique City” of Walnut will be prominently featured during a nationally aired program this (Monday) evening on Public Television. Dave Bradley, Owner of Corn Country Antiques in Walnut, says the producers and crew with the “Market Warriors” program on PBS paid a visit to Walnut last June, during the annual AMVET’s Antique Walk.

The “Market Warriors” antique experts come to Walnut for a taping of the show.

The one-hour program features four experts on antiques who criss-cross the country, in search of items to buy at flea markets and antique shows, and then sell everything at auction. Bradley says their goal, is to score the biggest profit in each show’s final auction segment. He says they have a certain amount of dollars to spend, and target items to try and find…kind of like a scavenger hunt.

The experts don’t actually “pocket” the profits. Instead, it just goes back into the production efforts of the program. Bradley says it also shows “No matter how smart you are, you don’t always make money,” when it comes to buying and selling antiques.

The experts filmed a segment of the show in his store. The piece was about an 1830’s clock. Bradley says he won’t know for sure whether the piece made to final editing until the show airs.

There’s a preview of tonight’s program on the web at www.pbs.org. You can also watch the show later, if you miss the episode of Market Warriors, tonight. Bradley says the producers selected Walnut because of their AMVETS show. He says the AMVETS show is one of the best in the country. They do an excellent job of filtering out the non-antique items, which is something the “purists” enjoy and appreciate.

Bradley says the City, businesses and organizations worked to make sure the cast and crew had everything they needed in-place, before they arrived and started shooting the show, including location, power and food. Bradley says PBS brought about 25 people to the town for the program, along with numerous pieces of production-related equipment. He says there was no pre-production public announcement of the shoot, to try and keep things as normal as possible. Bradley says they taped tonight’s show with four crews, each of whom spent 10- to 12-hours in the community.

Tonight’s program featuring Walnut airs at 8-p.m. local time, right after the “Antiques Roadshow.”